Summer Vacation 2014

This summer we did our "Tour of Texas" (driving to Houston to visit Keith's family and then down to the Valley to visit my family). It was our first time all traveling together in the car for hours and I was worried how Keira would do, but she did pretty well. I tried to pack plenty to keep her company in the car and she did a lot better than I expected...success!

Pool time at Grandma's house!

Then we made our drive to South Padre Island to spend some time with my parents...our view from our room :-)

Keira's 1st time in the ocean!

The day before I woke up with pink eye...so mad I had to wear my glasses the entire vacation, and have a pink eye...

We also went to Schlitterbahn while we were in SPI!

 Our last morning there the kids slept in until 8:30am...it was nice...

Dylan took this picture of us...

When we got back to Houston we went to Galveston with Keith's parents and visited Moody Gardens...

The view from our hotel in Galveston...

Enjoying a walk along the seawall!

Then around 8:45pm the power went out at the hotel because of the gusty winds from that evening...after about an hour of waiting to see if it would come back on, we decided to leave the hotel and drive back to Houston. And of course, I couldn't pass up the photo opp!

We had a great time seeing both of our families and the kids had a wonderful time getting spoiled by grandparents (maybe too wonderful). We have 4 weeks left of summer before Keith has to go back to work and we have plenty left on out Summer To-Do List with the kids!

Stay-cation at Great Wolf Lodge Resort

Because Dylan didn't do as well as I had planned in the car during our Spring Break road trip, I was nervous about going anywhere too far away for our summer vacation. We were initially planning on visiting the beautiful beaches of Florida, and I'm sure he would've done fine in the car for 8-10 hours (with a few pit stops along the way) but just thinking about the chance that he may not do well or even hate the beach (he HATES the feeling of sand on his feet) seriously stressed me out...I think we'll stick to the beach on Lake Lewisville that's close to home! We started looking into the Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine and figured that would be a fun stay-cation that Dylan would love. Keith's family joined us and we had a fun couple of days in our amazing 2-bedroom suite!

Dylan was so excited to go play in the water!

"Paw Paw, I'm so excited!"

"Aunt Zee Zee, I'm so excited!!"

I didn't get a lot of pictures in the water park, but I also didn't want to accidentally drop my camera in the water...

Dylan had to make a few calls. He loved the suite, he kept running between all the bedrooms, turning all of the TV's on and off, and looking out the window at the airplanes flying by.

He took a 3-hour nap on the 2nd day we were there and we actually had to wake him up...swimming really takes it out of the little guy!

"I will NOT take a picture with this stupid cupcake bear!"

He tried stealing the penny the wolf was holding...he starting pulling it, saying "MINE!"

(oh, how I love the "mine" stage!)

Where's Stacey?!?!

There she is!!!

One more "hoorah" in the water before leaving :-(

Can't leave without one more "15 minutes" in the hot tub!

We had so much fun with everyone, and the 15 minute drive home afterwards was priceless! So many thanks to Keith's family for driving up and vacationing with us!!!